Monday, April 24, 2006

I had to sneak "H" in yesterday because "I" can only be one thing:

The beauty and the majesty of...

Iceland

My cousin Ingileif and her wife Linda (yes, Iceland is that civilized) were fantastic tour guides. Since our trip was such a short one they made sure we hit all the big tourist spots. I took over 200 pictures but I'll try to contain myself. Today we'll focus on the natural wonders.

This is Rauðhólar:

It has the coolest red lava rocks. It's amazingly beautiful with lots of cool slopes. That's Maribel freezing there, the wind was quite strong that day. Avery went climbing and came home with a few rocks for souvenirs.

We then went driving into the mountains to take the scenic route to our next destination. Unfortunately the rental car was not quite up to the slippery conditions on the road so we had to turn back and take another route.

This is Þingvellir:

This was the site of Iceland's first Parliment in 930 AD. It is also is a great view of the Mid-Atlantic ridge. It's really an amazing spot, so much history and science in one spot!

This is Kerið:

It is a huge crater that was formed when a volcano exploded about 3000 years ago. It is really deep and dude I could not get too close to the edge. It was beautiful but I was totally freaked out by the height.

We did get some great shots though:

Next up was Geysir. Geysir was dormant for years but after an earthquake in 2000 it started up again. Linda told us that when it was dormant they actually tried throwing soap flakes into it to get it going again but it didn't work. As all true divas Geysir doesn't perform on demand but she has an understudy Strokkur who is more than happy to perform every few minutes:

Cool right?

Finally there was Guillfoss:

I loved Niagara Falls when I went but this blew me away. Maribel and Avery climbed up to the observation deck to get this shot (I wasn't doing the stairs, I'm just as lazy on vacation).

Of course there was the most amazing and beautiful Icelandic wonder...